Greece’s ruling party leads in European elections but suffers major decline from last general elections

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) - Greece’s ruling liberal-conservative New Democracy (ND) party leads the European Parliament elections with 27.6%, which indicates a major decline from its nearly 40.8% in last year’s general elections.

With over 50% of the vote counted, ND is followed by the main opposition leftist SYRIZA with 14.76% in the elections whose turnout rate was only 38.94%, according to data from the Interior Ministry.

Social democratic PASOK became the third largest party with 13.28%, followed by the far-right Greek Solution party with 9.84%.

While the Greek Communist Party (KKE) came in fifth with 9.31%, the far-right Victory party gathered 4.42% of the votes.